Bob Hurley Sr., the school's president and legendary basketball coach, announced the news to the school's teary-eyed staff and faculty this afternoon.

"The community will miss this little safe haven," Freda told The Jersey Journal.

Hurley, 69, said today that the school, in significant debt to the Archdiocese of Newark, was not able to promise church officials two things that could have kept the school open: increasing enrollment by 25 percent and raising enough money to have $500,000 in the bank by the start of the next school year.

Fighting back tears, Hurley said, "It's brutal. Absolutely brutal."

Marco Espina, 18, is a St. Anthony senior from Jersey City, one of the school's 160 students. The school's closure is "going to hurt a lot of people," he said.

"This school gives children opportunities," he said. "The public schools out here are not really that good."

Alex Ortiz, 42, the parent of a 16-year-old St. Anthony sophomore, said he didn't know yet where he would enroll his son next year. The 16-year-old is still stunned that the school will soon close its doors for the last time, Ortiz said.

"Right now, he's in almost a state of shock," he said. "He doesn't know how to react."

Hurley said the school's insistence on keeping its tuition to $6,100 -- tuition at nearby St. Peter's Prep is $16,300 -- created a structural deficit that in the end it could not surmount.

St. Anthony, located on Eighth Street in Downtown Jersey City, sits on a valuable lot, located a short walk from the Newport PATH station and the Waterfront. Across the street, developers in December 2014 purchased a vacant piece of land for $13.2 million and are now building a $163 million, 17-story residential tower on the property.

The school and some of its adjacent parking lot are owned by the St. Anthony parish, and some of the parking lot is owned by the city.

For decades St. Anthony has sought to educate children from some of the toughest streets in Jersey City. Hurley said today he's worried about those students, using one freshman soccer player as an example.

"If we cannot find him a proper school he's going into public school as a 5-foot, 95-pound kid and that's not a good situation for that kid, who's nurtured, who's taken care of here," he said. "If he goes into public school, it's going to be a much more difficult situation for him."